


I'm Glad You Were Away

by Birdbitch



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Dawn of Justice, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6411190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the battle against Doomsday, Bruce Wayne makes a house call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OF COURSE I would want to write about a character who is probably not even in the movie universe. Assume the Robin costume was Jason's and that Bruce and Dick had a huge blow up several years ago, movie time.

The ringing of his landline catches Dick off guard when it happens in the middle of the night. No, not middle--it’s practically morning, but he sleeps through it anyway better off waking up around 11 or sometimes even noon. In any case, for him it’s late and he’s in a strange dreamlike state so much so that he almost thinks that it must be his imagination until it stops and starts again.

With heavy feet, he swings his legs over the edge of the couch (he knows he should use his bed, knows that this is hell on his back, and doesn’t really care) and crosses the room to answer it. “Hello?”

“Turn on the news.”

The voice belongs to Bruce and Dick knows it immediately, doesn’t need a sleep fogged brain to tell him to listen because when Bruce tells him to do something, he does it, even after what has to have been over a year of radio silence. “Morning to you too,” he says, but his voice feels like it belongs to someone else. He hates watching the news; usually, he’s out there himself living it. “Is that the old library?” Bruce doesn’t answer, doesn’t need to. Dick already knows the answer, is waking up and sees highlights. Superman. Someone he doesn’t know. Bruce--Bruce. Batman. Whichever he decides he was. “You know, my landline isn’t secure.”

“I’m the only one who calls you on it.”

“You don’t know that.” He knows it. Besides, Bruce still foots the bill, like he does for the apartment whenever Dick is coming up short on rent, or when there’s a Blue Apron delivery waiting for him when he didn’t go food shopping. For all the “we’re in a fight and not talking”, Bruce still seems pretty well-invested in Dick staying alive. “Where are you?” He doesn’t ask if Bruce is okay; as far as the news seems to say, there weren’t very many civilians involved (thank God). If anyone besides Bruce ever listens in, he’d rather not put either of them at risk.

Speaking of which: his uniform is sprawled in pieces from his window to the couch. That’s not very safe, either.

“I’m on my way to Bludhaven.”

“You don’t have to--”

“Yes, I do.”

No arguing over the phone, besides, Dick isn’t so sure he wants to really turn Bruce away. Over a year since they’ve talked on the phone, probably longer since they’ve seen each other face to face. He frowns. “You’re already almost here, aren’t you?”

“I figured a phone call would be better than a knock at your door.”

“Still got me figured out, don’t you?” He’s smiling, though. “I’ll see you in what, twenty?”

“Make it thirty.”

It’s enough time for Dick to tidy up really quick and go back to sleep for a little, if he wanted to. He hangs up the phone not sure if he’s supposed to say “bye” or not and idles away until he only has ten minutes left. The costume, he does bring into his room, hangs up in his closet (not like he generally has visitors anyway). The escrima sticks go on the top shelf, pushed to the back. It feels like he’s just settling back down on his feet when there’s the knock, an old rhythm he and Bruce established back when they were.

Partners, he guesses.

“You’re bleeding,” he says before Bruce even gets in the door. The words are swallowed by a hard kiss, and he groans into it, reaching up and tugging his fingers through Bruce’s hair. He’s gone a little grayer and there are more lines in his face but he knows this feeling too well and he’s missed it, as much as he might claim to someone like Kory that, no, he hasn’t, and no, he’s not planning on getting back together with Bruce ever. There’s too much security that comes in being wrapped up in Bruce’s arms again, shaking even as they might be, for him to pull away. 

“I’m glad you weren’t in Gotham,” Bruce says, mouth not so far from Dick’s that the words don’t feel like they’re being said immediately against his skin. 

The news is still playing and Dick knows, somewhere in the back of his mind now, that Superman is dead. He’s trying really hard not to think that that has anything to do with why Bruce is here. “Come here,” he says, tugging Bruce in by the front of his shirt (soft and dark and comfortable--Dick thinks it might be an old one). “I can’t believe it takes something destroying Gotham for you to come visit.”

“Don’t.”

“Later.”

“Fine. Not--not now.” It’s strange to hear Bruce pleading, but Dick doesn’t mind it half so much as he might have thought he would.

“How long are you staying?”

“Are you working today?”

“Are you?”

Bruce shakes his head. They’re still practically in the doorway, even with the door shut. “City’s in mourning. Both of them. Nobody’s going to work.” Not nobody--plenty of reporters, obviously, if the news is anything to judge by. Dick pulls away for a moment so he can change the channel. “I can leave, if--”

“After driving all the way out? Come here,” Dick repeats. He reaches out, wraps long fingers around Bruce’s wrist and tugs him like he can actually make him move. “I’m not working today,” he says. “We should.”

We should catch up, he thinks. We should talk about what happened. We should discuss what’s going to happen moving forward. Instead of any of these, he moves back into Bruce’s personal bubble and kisses him, nice and gentle and soft. Bruce won’t have that, wraps him back up and lifts him, moves them both into the living room, past the television (which is now broadcasting a children’s show, all bright colors getting drained by the dark of the room), past this and into Dick’s bedroom.

There will be time, he figures, for all of the words they need to say, later. 


	2. Chapter 2

Dying has always been an occupational hazard for them. Dick has known this since long before Superman ever started saving people. He’s known since Jason Todd. 

He presses his palms flat against Bruce’s chest, trying to satisfy himself with this, whatever it is that’s brought him to Bludhaven. “I didn’t go out on patrol last night,” he says, and Bruce grunts, wraps a large hand around Dick’s bicep to manhandle him onto his side.

“How’d it feel?”

He licks his lips, looks at Bruce’s mouth, his eyes. “Bad,” he says. He doesn’t care how many times he’s almost died. He needs to be in the streets like there’s something singing in his veins about it, flowing right inside his blood. “I should have been there.”

“You haven’t been in Gotham in years. You might not even recognize it anymore.” 

“I haven’t been because I didn’t think I was welcome.”

“She’s your city, too.” Bruce rolls them, is on top of him suddenly, pressing down large and heavy and still shaking, like he’s cold. He’s probably in shock, or something, and Dick just wants to press their skin together to try to help Bruce keep it together. “I need to do something,” Bruce says, and he hides his face against Dick’s neck. He needs to save the world. Dick’s known that about Bruce ever since he met him, back when his own parents were killed and the only warm hand he knew belonged to a stranger.

“Hardly.” Every city can be his city if he’s there for a night or two. “Bruce, what actually happened last night?”

He moves a little, wraps an arm down and around Dick’s lower back. It could be uncomfortable; it’s not. “I don’t want to talk about it yet,” which is Bruce speak for never wanting to talk about it. They still haven’t had a discussion about Jason without it turning into a screaming match (and something tells Dick that even if they need to, this isn’t the day). “You didn’t patrol last night.”

“I woke up really late yesterday. Had a rough time the night before. You know how it is.”

It’s then that Bruce notices some homemade stitches in Dick’s shoulder, and he frowns, runs a finger lightly over them even though he really, really shouldn’t. “We should get it looked at,” he says, meaning by Alfred, but Dick shakes his head. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready to go back yet.”

He doesn’t respond immediately, which usually means disappointment but a reluctance to admit it, like if by not saying something Bruce can ignore that he’s feeling it in the first place. He pulls away and Dick, knowing better, doesn’t bother trying to stop him. “There’s this kid who’s been trying to tell me that I need a Robin,” he says, scratching his chest. There’s a huge bruise blooming on Bruce’s back, like he was thrown against a wall and whichever suit he was wearing tried merging itself with his body.

Dick swallows, sits up and does follow the line of Bruce’s body by pressing his forehead to the base of the man’s spine. “Maybe he’s right. He figured us out, didn’t he?”

“You’re what gave it away, actually,” Bruce says, but he’s not mad. There’s a little bit of a laugh and Dick frowns, furrows his brow. “Your style. He was a fan, back when you were an acrobat.”

“How old is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s a kid.” They all were. Bruce was probably 16, back before he decided to become Batman, even. “I can’t be responsible for.” He doesn’t finish, lets his face fall instead into the waiting cup of his palms, and Dick wraps his arms around Bruce’s middle. “He knows. I don’t know if he’s threatening to reveal the secret if I don’t let him be Robin, but--”

“If he knows who we are, he knows who Jason was, too,” Dick answers. He lets go of Bruce, leaves the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. You look like you probably need one, too.”

The shower runs for five minutes on the dot, Dick under the hot spray, before Bruce comes in, and they haven’t done this before, but it doesn’t feel like it needs a lot of explanation. 

“Let’s patrol together tonight,” Bruce says, and it’s in the low Batman voice he used to use before he got the voice modifier, and Dick almost swoons, doesn’t actually, and frowns. 

“You’re in shock,” he says. “You should be back in the cave.”

“Then come back with me.”

“Is this an invitation or a demand?”

Bruce turns him, then, presses him against the cold tile wall and Dick bares his throat. “I won’t ask twice,” Bruce says, and that’s a promise. Dick hates ultimatums like this, hates being put in a position where he knows that if he says the wrong thing, he’ll lose forever. It’s why he ended up in Bludhaven in the first place.

“Jesus, Bruce,” he says before crashing up into him, mouth rough and red and ready. He presses up and digs his fingers against the flesh of Bruce’s shoulders, ready for it when Bruce lifts him for better access. “I can’t stay,” he whispers, pleading with Bruce to understand, that he’s not ready, doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready to be back forever. 

“One night,” Bruce says, kissing the corner of his mouth. “One night. It’s all I need.”

He needs more than that and they both know it. He’s going to end up taking on another Robin, taking on another son, and Dick needs to be there because Gotham is calling back to him and he knows, now that Superman’s dead, that they’ve got to stick together. If the guy people were calling a god could die, what does that mean for mortals? 

Bruce has new scars on his chest, on his torso, the skin smooth and lighter there than Dick remembers, but then, he’s got new scars too. He doesn’t let go. 


	3. Chapter 3

“So who is she?” Dick asks, looking up at the main screen in the cave. The news has been calling her Wonder Woman, at least the stream that Bruce has running on one of the smaller screens, and Bruce pauses in his stretching. 

“Diana.” 

“You know each other?”

“No.” He pauses, reaches towards his feet and Bruce is a lot of things, but flexible isn’t really one of them, not naturally at any rate, and after a rough night he still has to reach to loosen up his muscles. “Not yet, anyway. There are others, like them.” Like us, not so much, but maybe--Dick has met at least two other capes in his time, with no meta human genes, and then there’s that kid, Tim, who Dick eyeballs looking over computer files. 

He hadn’t expected him to already be there, but Bruce was right--he’s a kid, maybe old enough to drive, depending on the state, but so  _ young _ . “Alfred let me in,” he says, but judging by Alfred’s face, that’s not entirely true. So he’s quick fingered, like Jason, but much less so for survival and much more for the challenge of being able to do things. And he’s obviously smart, which is why Bruce has him playing around with Lex Luthor’s personal computer, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be Robin.

“Then you’re going to be making a team,” Dick follows up, and he eases into his own stretch, too, eager to get out onto the streets again even if he knows he and Bruce won’t be patrolling maybe until the next night. Tim looks over, watching, and then looks away when he’s caught like he’s embarrassed, but that won’t do at all. “Hey, Tim, you wanna get some stretches in?”

“Dick.” Bruce gives him a warning look, but it’s not all that threatening when he’s just barely able to wrap the edges of his fingers around the sides of his feet. 

“Um. Is it--okay?” He looks between Bruce and Dick. “I didn’t bring any like, gym clothes.”

“Bring some next time, then,” Dick says, and Bruce could kill him.

“Okay.”

“Tim, what have you found on Luthor’s computer?” 

He looks back at it and frowns. “Everything’s encrypted, but I found a couple of files that have to do with Cadmus, which I thought was weird but maybe not because of the whole ‘wanting to kill Superman’ thing--so I looked into it, and there’s a government project called ‘Cadmus’, and Luthor had like, a lot of money invested in it. Weird, right?”

“Keep digging.”

“I’ve been trying, but some of these files are even harder to crack than yours,” Tim says. 

Dick raises an eyebrow. “You cracked his what?”

“So how long do you think it would take you?”

“Maybe a couple of days, if I worked straight through--”

“You have school tomorrow.” It’s dad-mode all over again, which Dick thinks he’s lucky to have missed; when Bruce took him in, they were close enough in age that Bruce might as well have been a big brother rather than a father (he knows that if he thinks about how long ago it was, he’ll grow fifteen years worth of wrinkles through his face). Jason was another story--he was probably around Tim’s age now, even if he acted sometimes like he was older, or younger, depending on the situation, and maybe Bruce figured he needed the authority and stability. You can be Robin, but you have to be a normal teenager, too. 

Tim might be the most normal of them all, though, Dick’s figuring. “It’s almost ten. When does your dad have your curfew set for?”

And then, almost with a hint of sadness, Tim says, “He probably wouldn’t notice, anyway.” He clears his throat a little, and clearer, he says, “Since it’s a school night, not until eleven.”

“And it’s going to take about twenty minutes to get back into the city proper. I’ll have Alfred take you home.”

Alfred looks up from where he’s been doing more maintenance on the batmobile and frowns. “Not going out tonight, then?”

“No. There’s--” Bruce looks at Dick fleetingly, who looks at the mat and pulls one knee up to his chest to avoid any eye contact at all. “I think I need a break after last night.”

“Do you think they’re really going to have school tomorrow?” Tim asks, and it’s more to Dick, who shrugs. He knows they have school in Bludhaven all the time even with terrible events. 

“I think you’re out of luck if you’re looking for a snow day.”

“Can I come back tomorrow?”

Bruce grunts, letting go of his feet, finally satisfied with that stretch. “Yes.” And he looks at Dick, for a second, before saying, “Bring sweatpants.”

They watch Tim follow Alfred up the stairs, out of the cave, and Dick looks at him. “What changed your mind?”

“I didn’t say I’m going to let him be Robin.”

“‘Bring sweatpants’? Bruce, that’s an invitation to start training him.” He waits for a second, eases out of his own stretch and then bends back into a bridge. It works his torso, makes him have to think about how he’s breathing before he gets back into the natural rhythm of it. “Plus, he hacked your computers? You didn’t tell me that part.”

“I didn’t think it would come up.” 

Dick grins, moves into a handstand and has to remember his shoulder. “You wouldn’t have told me that a fifteen year old hacked your computers.”

“It was the company ones, so it’s not that impressive.”

“Please. I couldn’t crack them until like, six months ago.”

“That was you.”

“I wanted to say hello, but didn’t--” he frowns, then, comes down and sits on the mat, eyes up at Bruce’s chest. “We should talk about things.”

But when they talk about things, they usually dissolve into shouting matches, and Dick’s not sure he wants that. They work better when they don’t have to talk. He hacked into the Wayne Enterprises computers to see if Bruce would notice, and if he did, if he’d say anything. A bouquet of roses with a card signed by “Matches Malone” isn’t the equivalent of Bruce noticing him, but it helped. They work so much better when they’re not pretending to be themselves. “Do you think it’s okay?” Bruce says, finally, and Dick realizes that his eyes had trailed at some point over to the case, the awful case where he still keeps Jason’s costume. What would Jason have grown up to be like?

“He’s a smart kid.”

“So was Jason.”

“He’s not really like us, I guess,” Dick admits. He moves now--he’s ready to spar, hopes Bruce is, too. “But maybe that’s a good thing. And besides--he figured it out.”

“Did you know what you wanted when you were fifteen?”

Of course he did. He wanted the world. Still does, sometimes, when he thinks about it being a world that involves him and Bruce working together in it, still does when he imagines what it felt like when he had it. “I hear that kids are aging a lot faster now than they were twenty years ago. Besides, I was only two years older.”

“You’d been in a different world growing up.”

“Maybe, but you weren’t.”

“He wants to be Robin.”

“You’re trying to compile a team of superheroes. Christ, Bruce, if you tell him no and he’s already figured that out, he’ll call you a hypocrite and then he’ll come to me.”

“You’d train him?”

“I learned from the best, didn’t I?” He’d bat his eyes, but that’d be over the top. “Did you want to spar, or not? We don’t have that much time before dad gets back.” Alfred, who did his best to keep both of them in line, would probably have some cutting words about the stitches in Dick’s shoulder and Bruce’s overall state of shock that, Dick’s sure, he’s still probably wading through, has been since the night before. 

Bruce falls into a fighting stance, and the first few strikes miss for both of them, but it’s not very long before they fall back into their old rhythm, fall back into the feel of fighting together, and it’s kind of like dancing. It’s kind of like back when Dick used to watch his parents go back and forth on the trapeze, swinging and moving in bright swatches of color and beautiful. When he was fifteen, he wanted a world like that. What the world necessarily is has changed, but it hasn’t stopped him from wanting it.

He wants to say he let Bruce get him down on his back, but it’s not entirely true--he was distracted, a little, by the silver of a scar on Bruce’s collarbone, and even looking up, he feels like his pupils must be blown and his chest flushed as he looks up at it. He’s not even trying to escape, and he’s not surprised when Bruce, hesitatingly, leans and presses a kiss against the corner of his mouth.

“We’re not doing this in the cave,” he mumbles, and that’s when he does wrap his legs around Bruce’s waist to buck him off, climb on top. “I’ll meet you back up in the house, when you’re done figuring out whatever you’ve got to figure out. And for the record?” He stands up, looks down at Bruce. “I think it’s okay. For him to be Robin. He’s right--you work better with a partner.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written for the always wonderful St00pz. Otherwise, I might have glossed over training entirely.

It’s been years since Dick has actually been in Gotham. Like, actually in Gotham, on a patrol, crushing some guy’s windpipe with his escrima stick. He wouldn’t say that he and Bruce had a very public breakup--just a very messy one, and when it happened, he got the hell out of dodge and into Bludhaven (which is always so, so much worse). They were both too stubborn to visit each other anywhere but the neutral ground of Metropolis, which had started getting less and less neutral following Superman and eventually just stopped entirely.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still know his way around all the curving streets, the public alleys renamed as such when buildings were put up and made thru-ways dead ends. This, like all the other things that came with being Robin, is muscle memory, born from Bruce dropping him off in the middle of the day with a blindfold on and telling him to find his way back to Wayne Industries tower without using a map. Dick’s not a city kid--growing up in a circus will make you a circus kid--but he’d always been a quick study. Seventeen and with dead parents, maybe Bruce saw something in him that he recognized in himself at only six years his senior. Besides, being Robin was the best five years of his life, and becoming Nightwing was even better. “Get your G.E.D., and we’ll take care of the rest.”

When you’re hurting, you want other people to hurt, too, but you’re also always looking for that other hand stretched out in the darkness. Dick had been stretching his own hand out for Bruce as much as Bruce had been reaching out for him.

“Okay,” he said. Okay.

Sometimes, he worried about how much he liked the violence. More often than not, he accepted it as a means to an end, and then, he was also never as bad as Jason, his successor when Robin seemed a little like it had outgrown him.

He zipties the arms dealers, leaves their boxes of illegal guns and the stupid amounts of physical money (don’t these guys realize direct deposit is their best bet nowadays?) open and arranged so that the GCPD can collect them. Bruce brands the violent criminals, or at least, has started doing that, but Dick doesn’t need to show the newest Robin that particular part of their game. It’s nothing he’s ever done, anyway, and he’s supposed to set a good example for Tim in a world where the most powerful being on Earth (as far as they know) got himself killed.

“You can leave a show to it, but it’s better for us to operate as a legend more than anything concrete.” Even if Bruce outed Batman’s legitimacy as a threat back with Doomsday. They both grapple line up to the nearest rooftop, where Bruce had been waiting, spectating, like some kind of field examiner seeing if Robin has passed the first test. He’s not as aggressive (yet), but Tim has potential. He’s brilliant and catches other people’s lying better than Dick ever did straight off the bat. Besides, he, unlike either Dick or Jason, actually has had a formal education.

“Performance eval?” Robin asks, and Bruce nods.

“Not tonight. Tomorrow--get to the cave and after you finish your homework, we’ll do a rundown of all the things that went well and what needs improvement.”

“You did a good job, kid,” Dick tells him, and Tim’s cheeks go red under his mask. There might be a small festering mentor-crush there. Nothing that compares to what ended up flaring between him and Bruce, since they weren’t so much mentor-protege and more...what, comrades with the same purpose? Something like that. Even with the instability that Gotham seemed built upon, it was still more consistent than a lifetime of living on the road. “Get yourself back home, and don’t forget to store your suit and everything in that fireproof safe you convinced your dad to buy you for a birthday present. You know where the nearest safehouse is.”

“Yeah. Are you guys going there, or back to the manor?”

“Manor. There’s evidence that needs to be catalogued, and we don’t have bedtimes.” Or, rather, they do, but it’s pretty clear to Dick that he’s probably going to be relocating to Gotham for the time being, so he’s put life in Bludhaven on hold for an indeterminate amount of time, and Bruce can set his own hours so long as he doesn’t forget any important meetings before 11 a.m. So bedtimes are more relative to them than they are to a fifteen year old who’s still in actual high school and doesn’t need his father called about him falling asleep in class.

Tim’s also apparently a genius though, and keeps up in classes doing all of this where Dick is sure he’d have fallen behind. (“Two AP classes?” he’d asked when Tim brought his homework to school, and was replied to with a, “The more I take, the sooner I can take the classes I want to take in college.”)

If the kid’s disappointed that he was only allowed to take out a couple of goons and then had to wait and watch in the event of more showing up, he doesn’t show it. That’s another thing--Tim Drake takes orders very well, but he’s got Bruce’s mindset and doesn’t trust anyone. What do they teach kids in school these days? It doesn’t matter. He pouts about getting sent home early like a regular teenager, while Bruce and Dick swingline back to their original look out.

“Anything big on the scanner?” he asks, and Batman shrugs, takes out a pair of infrared binoculars to take a look across the street.

“Nothing the GCPD couldn’t handle. I picked a slow night for a reason.”

“You know, when you say that, it’s almost like back when we took Jason in and would look for excuses to--” he stops, since Jason’s still a sore subject, but it was like they’d use Alfred as an unofficial babysitter while they got rid of any of the pent up aggression they still had going on after a stressful patrol. Sorry, Alfred. Instead, Dick shakes his head to clear it. “There are actual mission reports I want to fill out on this one, you’re right, and we’ll probably want to go over Robin’s performance to come up with an actual assessment. Did you update the rubric you created for J--the other Robin?”

“I had to,” Batman says, and that’s that, so they’ll go back to the cave and address it. Something weird about training people is that Bruce is so anal retentive about everything that he comes up with so many charts and guidelines, and so many of them are contingencies that might never be used--but are still important to have “just in case.”

After Batman is sure that Robin has returned home, undetected by his parental unit, he indicates with a head tilt that it’s time to head back. Dick has his mind focused anywhere but on the case, even though he should have his audio notes available to be translated into text and then cleaned up later. Thank god for Bruce’s technological empire. Thank god for everything that has become a modern convenience since they got into the game about twenty years ago.

He reminds himself that he’s going to need to shower and use the anti-aging serum that he hopes he packed in his go-bag. Dick knows that he gets too concerned about his looks, and he doesn’t care. He hasn’t had to start dying his hair the same way he knows Bruce will occasionally get rid of some of the gray around his temples. He keeps the rest of his body fighting gravity--why not keep his face to the same discipline?

Twenty goddamn years.

Dick’s thirty-seven now.

He doesn’t feel like he’s a day over twenty-nine, and he swoops behind Bruce to where the Batmobile (stealth mode) has been hidden in a no-parking space. “I’m not going to lie B,” he says, “I almost feel like I’ve been in a recent encounter with Ivy.”

Batman grunts; Bruce steers them back on the road leading to Gotham’s back country, the small amount of undeveloped land (small only by Gothamite standards) behind the actual city proper. He’s going faster than usual. The reports, too, take faster than usual. Dick wonders if he’s being subject to a strange kind of torture when he realizes that Bruce has probably been as anxious as he’s been since the last time they fucked--which was when Dick convinced Bruce that Tim would make a decent Robin, if he gets enough hands-on training. It’s been a year before Bruce felt confident for even Nightwing monitored patrols, with himself watching from the distance, but Tim is good. Better than good. He picks up quickly, and he’s a kid genius.

So the report is filed and Bruce and Dick have a brief conversation about Tim’s field training and its progression before Bruce leans in and fills the space, starting it again like Dick hasn’t been expecting him to do, but isn’t going to protest about. “Out of the cave?” he asks, and Bruce nods, stands up. They could shower, but it’d be to just make another mess again, and it’s easier to just strip into their civvies and make their way back up to the manor--Bruce’s sleek, Frank Lloyd-Wright inspired piece that’s a good football field away from the actual manor, which, if Dick’s thinking about it, should be restored to its former glory. Bruce might not want to have anything to do with his ancestral home, but it’d be more privacy than the glass walls surrounding his bedroom.

Dick’s not afraid about that, knowing that if Vicki Vale or anyone else were to try to get a scoop on who Bruce is fucking now (and according to Alfred’s barbed comments, there’s nobody except maybe sometimes Selina, but Dick doesn’t draw his own claws at her mention anymore), they probably wouldn’t be able to get past the security measures Bruce had installed years ago. And even if they did get past? They work better in the dark, anyway.

It’s just that wide windows do bother him, and he doesn’t know how to explain it beyond just that: they do, and he doesn’t like it. He lets Bruce manhandle him once they’re out of Alfred’s sightline, grins into a rough kiss and this could be like wrestling, if he wanted it to be. He doesn’t, though, prefers the press of bodies to be relenting against him, likes not having to put up a fight when they’re both tired from the patrol, even if he’s still got the adrenaline rush. Dick slides into it, wraps his arms around Bruce’s shoulder and jumps up to wrap his legs around Bruce’s weight, knowing he can handle it.

“Ivy hasn’t been seen in a few years,” Bruce says, in reference to Dick’s earlier comment.

“Must just be that new cologne you’re wearing, then. ‘Eau de Gotham?’ I like it.” He nips Bruce’s ear, rocks against him as much as he can without throwing either of them off balance. “C’mon.” He releases his legs from their grip around Bruce’s waist and leads him down the hallway, something that’s still familiar even now, not because of the whole “I was Robin for five years and then Nightwing for another two before Jason got killed and I needed to leave” thing, but because of the, “I started sleeping with Bruce when I was twenty-one years old” thing.

“We don’t have to do this,” Bruce says, since it’d be good enough for him if they were just, you know. Bare and rutting like they were in their twenties and didn’t know what the hell they were doing with each other still, inexperienced even as adults. But he’s hard, when he presses against Dick’s back, and Dick’s feeling it, too.

“We don’t have to,” he agrees, but he kisses Bruce and feels him kiss back, hands coming down from his shoulders and to his waist. At some point during all of this, he’s sure they’ll stop as a two distinct things and become a singular. It’s why they’ve always worked so well. Sometimes things are doomed to happen. “But I want to.”

Lights are dimmed, almost romantic. Definitely not like the harsh, sterile lights in the cave, or the fluorescent one in his apartment. It’s almost easy to pretend that they’re normal. Dick slides his fingers over the stubble on Bruce’s face, pulls him closer and sits down on the bed. He pushes his hands down, right around the hem of Bruce’s tank top, looks at him like asking permission to push it up, and Bruce just takes it off instead. Somehow Dick missed it the last time they did anything (to be fair, he was tired and Superman had just died, so there were other things to be focused on), but Bruce has bulked up a little more.

“Have you missed this?” Dick asks, and Bruce looks at him, thrown for a loop. “You know. Not being alone?”

He has. Dick has hated quiet patrols without any banter. He has Oracle, sometimes, but she has mainframes to hack and other people to keep an eye on, cyber crimes and the like, and with her it’s not so much bantering as it is updates. Even though Batman is usually quiet, he snarks enough that he and Dick would have fun with it, putting criminals in the uncomfortable position of not knowing what to expect.

It’s not just that, though.

It’s after the patrols, too.

Bruce has Dick on his back, kissing his neck and biting, greedy, needy. “God,” Bruce says, voice thick in the back of his throat. “God, Dick, have I missed this?” There’s a nice cut on his jaw, something that’s going to have to be treated with liquid bandage and explained by a convenient accident somewhere, else there will be reporters (like Clark Kent, Dick thinks, rolling his eyes at how stupid the disguise was) wondering what happened to him. Dick whines at the bite, wraps his legs back around Bruce’s hips and flips them, only managing to do it because he caught Bruce with surprise. He leans down, kisses the cut, kisses Bruce’s clavicle, kisses down, down, and waits for the hand to tangle itself in his hair.

“Can I?” he asks, licking his lips, and Bruce nods, lets his head fall back.

“God, yes,” he says. Bruce needy is something that only happens when it’s been a while. Who was the last person to do this for him? Dick would ask, but instead he digs his fingertips into Bruce’s thighs and pulls his sweats lower. He’s not jealous. Nobody else knows how to do it like he can. Soon, he’ll let Bruce take him, flip him onto his stomach and do it that way, but for now, it’s nice enough to rile him up. When they were younger, they could get away with getting off with both. Now, it’s harder. Now, Dick breathes in the familiar scent of _Bruce_ , and he grins up at his partner (are they that again? Are they in a partnership?). Of course Bruce has been lonely--he’s been getting together a team of superheroes, and it’s not just for the sake of preventing another Doomsday--but Dick has been lonely, too.

When Bruce has had enough, he sits up, pulls Dick up with him and kisses him, messy, sloppy, tasting himself. Like Dick predicted, he tilts them, turns Dick and curves around him. “I’m a little rusty,” Bruce says.

“I think we’ll be okay,” Dick answers. There’s lube somewhere for keeping up appearances. He knows it. If he’s being honest, he’s a little bit rusty, too. Surprisingly, Bruce turns him on his back, looks him in the eyes. “Ah, Bruce,” Dick says, feeling a little lost. Sometimes, Bruce makes him feel like he’s eighteen again, experiencing these things for the first time. Maybe it’s just been too long for him, too. He leans up and pecks Bruce’s cheek, sighs as Bruce eases into him. That’s it. That’s right. This is where they need to be.

Even though he thinks it, Dick doesn’t tell Bruce that he loves him. He feels strong hands on him, holding his thighs, and he feels better here with these glass walls than he did back in Bludhaven like, ever.

When they’ve both finished, Dick’s cock spent in Bruce’s fist, Bruce helps him to his feet and walks him towards the bathroom. “This feels like deja vu,” Dick says, and Bruce grunts, unamused. “We’ve got to stop coming like this, or something.”

“Or something.”

“Don’t sound so upset. You love it.”

“We need to plan who’s going to observe and who’s going to mentor Robin tomorrow night,” Bruce answers, and Dick groans, because that’s just like him.


	5. Chapter 5

Tim--no,  _ Robin _ \--stares through a pair of infrared binoculars at the doors to Cadmus Labs from a rooftop about a block away. It’s a Friday, and if he were a normal teenager, he’d be--he doesn’t actually know. Maybe goofing off, eating pizza and playing video games? Stealing alcohol from his dad’s liquor stash so he could get drunk with his friends? Not that it matters. He’s here, now, in Metropolis, following a lead on the case that he’s been working on for months. 

And it’s not just Batman’s case that he’s letting Tim-- _ Robin _ , he corrects himself again--take a look at and help with: it’s  _ his _ case. He doesn’t even have Nightwing trailing him this time. Sure, he’d prefer it if work kept him closer to home (Metropolis is never going to beat Gotham for him), but. This is so cool. Not that he’ll say so--he’s got to keep some kind of professionalism, right?--but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s sixteen and working for Batman on his own case to figure out what the hell Lex Luthor wanted with what has turned out to be a cloning operation. 

Robin’s about to move in closer when he notices trouble the next block over. It’s still in the 3x3 grid he’s laid for himself for this operation, and he frowns. He wanted to be Robin because he wanted to help people, even when they’re not in his city. Nightwing would probably tell him to go take care of the civilians and worry about Cadmus after. He’s got all night--he told his dad--Tim Drake’s dad--he’d be staying with his friend Bernard, and lied to Bernard about having a date. He gives one last look towards Cadmus before grappling down to where there’s a mugging in progress.

He lands in between the mugger and his victim (a girl wearing a sweatshirt for Metropolis University), and is about to say something he’s sure will strike fear into the heart of the would-be thief, when he hears, “Ugh, this  _ shouldn’t _ be a job for Superman,” and whips around to see--well, not Superman.

“I’ve got it handled,” he says, and--what is this? Batman didn’t say anything about… “Superboy.”

“ _ Don’t _ call me Superboy.” He floats down, and he looks enough like Superman--if Superman were Tim’s age, which, last time he checked, the guy was dating Lois Lane and worked at the Planet. Not a high school student. “Isn’t there enough crime in Gotham?” 

“I’m  _ working _ ,” Robin answers, and he turns back to the mugger so he can knock him out with his staff. The guy hands over the purse without a struggle, clearly as off-put by the super jerk’s arrival as Robin is. “Go turn yourself into the police.” 

“Sure.” The guy runs off and Robin hands the bag to the Metropolis U student so she can go on her way and he can be on his. The entire plan for the night is scrapped. He’s going to have to go back to Gotham and explain that he couldn’t break into Cadmus because some Superman wannabe--wait. 

“You’re really going to let that mugger walk away?” 

“He’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?”

“That’s--”

“I mean, you’ve been sitting on the top of that building over there for the past four hours. Gotta be a reason for it, right?” 

Robin looks at him and frowns. There’s enough of Superman in the facial features, but there’s something else that he can’t place. It’s driving him nuts. “Who are you?” he asks.

“Um, duh. You see the ‘S,’ right?” He points at it, and it’s stretched, sure, over his chest, almost obscured by the leather jacket (and who wears those? Who wears them while trying to fight crime?)--which apparently also has the ‘S’ on the back of it. Ugh. Robin rolls his eyes behind the domino mask and starts walking away. “Hey!”

“I’m working,” he repeats. Or at least, he was working.

“Maybe I could help.” 

“I doubt it.”

“C’ _ mon _ , it’s been so boring here. If there’s something going on in my city--” There’s a hopeless kind of look on his face, and Tim--not Robin, Tim--kind of gets it. Not that he wants to give into a guy who’s whining like a two year old, but. Robin doesn’t really work alone, even if Tim Drake does. 

He thinks about it, then grapples up to the rooftop. Unsurprisingly, “Superman” follows him up. “Do you have any other name? Superman is kind of--”

“You could call me the Metropolis Kid.”

“That’s even worse!”

“Then call me--”

“I’m going to call you Superboy,” Robin answers. He’s going to be kicked out of the Robin costume and turned back into regular Tim Drake, he knows it, but he points towards the nondescript entrance to Cadmus Labs. “Listen. I’ve been following a lead for the past few months, and it led me here. I’m trying to figure out what Lex Luthor wanted with Cadmus Labs--”

“Well, that’s easy.” 

“What?”

Superboy grins and points a thumb at himself. “They were cloning me.”

Tim--and Robin--is dumbfounded. He’s spent so long just trying to access Lex Luthor’s computer files (and was able to get further than  _ Batman _ had on that front) when all he had to do was pay attention to the news. It’s not like he  _ hadn’t _ seen some talk about a Superman in Metropolis, but he had just figured it was a...retrospective. It’s been about a year. He’s an idiot. It’s kind of like a short circuiting. “They what?” is what he asks. 

“Cloned me from Superman--you know, the first one--before he even died. Clearly, Lex Luthor wanted to get his hands on me--but I broke out before he did, you dig?”

“You broke out.”

“I had help, okay, but yeah. Which is why I’m--y’know, not an adult, but I figure in a few years, who’s going to know the difference?”

He sinks into a crouch, staring at the building again while Superboy stands behind him. “I can’t believe this.” First mission on his own, and he blows it by not reading the fucking newspaper. Print is dead, but he’s been so wrapped up in this and making sure his schoolwork has been at the same level as ever and that his dad didn’t know--but even explaining why he didn’t pay attention to current events feels like making excuses for himself. “So what--they grew you? In a test tube?”

“More like a big vat, but sure.”

He grins at Robin again. Maybe this doesn’t have to mean the investigation is over. Superboy clearly doesn’t know that Lex Luthor was pumping his own funds into Cadmus, so there’s still a thread that he can chase, but--he won’t even be able to do it  _ in _ Metropolis because, well. Plus, he’s going to have to figure out what kind of threat Superboy might be. He’s younger--maybe his powers aren’t as strong or as developed as Superman’s were. Or maybe they’ve presented differently, something. He can still work on a contingency plan because Batman’s going to ask for it, and his weekend just got so much more difficult. “Were there any others?”

“Other whats?”

“Other yous.”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Kind of.” There’s a flash of guilt on Superboy’s face, and he takes a seat next to Robin, stares at the building. “It’s hard to explain.”

Robin starts recording. “Try,” he says, and Superboy scratches the back of his head--fingernails catching on the short hairs of his fade. There are so many different things going on with his entire outfit--but that’s not the point, Tim remembers. 

“Um. Alright. So, I wasn’t the first attempt at cloning Superman. Cadmus needed to perfect what they were doing. Some of them weren’t good. Or. Not good, but.” 

“They were your...brothers?”

“I don’t know. I guess. I guess it’s like if you try to make something out of clay and you bake it and it shatters, or just doesn’t set the way it’s supposed to.” He pauses. “Is this really going to help Metropolis?”

“I don’t know. It could.”

“We don’t really know each other--”

“Trust me.” He’s said that to other kids before, but he’s not even sure he trusts himself. “So there were other ones, but they weren’t complete?”

“Sure. I guess you could put it like that.” 

“What happened to them?”

Superboy stands up. “They’re not a problem,” he says. “Listen--there’s a building on fire a few blocks away, and I think they’re going to need someone to blow out the flames. I’ll catch you around, Rob.” 

Tim notices that he’s not flying so much as leaping, gathering up momentum. “Batman?” Robin opens the commlink from him to the cave. 

“Robin.”

“I’m coming back. There’s been a change of plans.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Sending Robin to Metropolis again?” Dick’s suiting up and watching Bruce do the same. Despite some thorough pre-patrol stretches, the older man’s still strung tight like a bow, and while Dick isn’t going to mention that part, he’s still curious. They haven’t had a formal conversation about Superboy and what he means, or what Tim’s doing in Metropolis every weekend, and he’s getting antsy waiting for Bruce to just tell him what’s going on.

“It’s his idea.” And maybe that explains the tension in his shoulders and back--it’s not Bruce’s plan, or even if it started as his, Tim’s gone ahead and made it his own. For all that Bruce might see that there’s logic in it, he’s still...nervous.

“That I still don’t know anything about.” Part of that’s Dick’s fault; he’d been spending the past few weeks working on busting a drug trafficking ring that had been operating out of the docks and flooding Bludhaven’s market with laced acid, and hadn’t honestly had time to catch up with everything else. It had taken priority, and he just got back from out of town last night.

Bruce pulls on the cowl. “He’s continuing his investigation into Cadmus,” he answers. “If you want to know more about it, you’re going to ask him.”

Dick laughs. “What, you didn’t ask him for a complete document showing exactly how he’s doing it?” He quits when he sees that Bruce isn’t laughing along, and in fact is avoiding his gaze. “You didn’t?”

“He gave a brief outline.”

“That doesn’t sound like him.”

“He doesn’t know how exactly to proceed.”

“So it’s a difficult situation?”

Bruce starts walking towards the Batmobile and Dick follows in step. “It’s proving difficult to figure out the extent of the clone’s powers. Most likely, more are going to develop as he gets older.”

Dick nods his head. “How close is Superman to being...you know, finished regenerating?”

“Close.”

“Ask him?”

“There’s room for error.”

He doesn’t bother asking what he means. He knows--as do the others that Bruce has assembled into some kind of, he doesn’t know, team--that Superman’s not necessarily dead. He’s taken more than a year to totally heal his body (the Flash blames it on Clark having been buried and not in direct contact with sunlight, and Dick doesn’t necessarily agree since Superman’s not a plant, but, well, what can he say?), but he’s not dead. “Room for error.” Dick climbs into the passenger seat of the Batmobile and frowns. “What does that mean?”

Batman doesn’t answer immediately, waits until they’re leaving the cave. “It means that Tim doesn’t think that he’s just a clone of Superman,” he says. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”

“Okay.” Or not. More likely, Dick will forget about it until it’s inconvenient to bring it back up, and he’ll stew in it, but there won’t be an ample opportunity to bring it up. “He has kryptonite, right?”

“There’s no guarantee that it would work the same way that it does on Superman.”

“Oh.” He’ll have to ask Tim for more information. He doesn’t know when he’ll get the chance, since he might have to go back to Bludhaven again for a while (now that he’s back on better terms with Bruce, he doesn’t really want to), but he’s getting the distinct feeling that Tim’s not telling Bruce everything. He’d know--he’s used to lying to Batman and can tell when other people do, too. “What’s on the plan for tonight, B?”

“There’s been rumors of movement that sounds like Ivy.”

Dick thinks about it--sex pollen, men following orders blindly, poisonous kisses. It’s been awhile since Poison Ivy’s done anything, when he thinks about it. “Sounds like fun,” he says, grinning, and he’ll be damned if Bruce doesn’t have a smirk on his face, too, when the Batmobile punches forward. “You have mask filters in here?”

“Might have been planning this for a few hours.”

“Is this date night for us?”

“I didn’t call it that.”

“Jesus.” Dick throws his head back, laughing. Only Bruce would take someone out crime fighting as a date.

* * *

 They’re tying up grunts under Ivy’s employ (or whatever--if they find amounts of her toxin in their systems, maybe they can argue a defense of having been brainwashed, or something) when Nightwing’s earpiece goes off. “Oracle to Nightwing.” Her voice is even, tempered by the voice disguising device that he hates.

“Nightwing here. What can I do for you tonight?” If he tightens the restraints a little too much, he doubts that Batman will call him on it, given the things that he’d been doing as recently as last year.

“Distress signal by the docks. Could be your guys from last week. I’d suggest checking it out.”

“Received.” The line goes dead, and he looks over at Batman. “I hate to cut date night short, but I have some guys I must have missed last time around.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Alright.” He smiles demurely. “Keep up if you can.” He shoots a grapple line up to the nearest rooftop, swings up and lands, and feels good running across and getting ready to do it again to the next building. He can’t leap over buildings in a single bound like some people, but he sure as hell can fake it. Batman’s following him, keeping pace but letting him keep the edge. Normally he’d be insulted (he doesn’t need anyone to let him win a race), but with Batman, it feels like flirting.

And then suddenly, he’s aware that Batman has stopped, and he almost falls off a ledge before throwing himself back in time. When he turns around to look, he sees that he’s got a hand up to his earpiece, trying to catch everything that’s coming in. Probably Wonder Woman. Nothing usually stops Batman in his tracks, but he’s standing there, listening, waiting. Scratch that, it must be Wonder Woman. “Batman?”

“He woke up. He’s heading towards Metropolis.”

That could be good, or it more likely might be very bad. In any case, Dick (not Nightwing, not the mask) is running towards Bruce, and it’s very clear that they need to get to Metropolis, or at least Batman needs to get to Metropolis, before there’s any fallout. Before he takes Superboy the wrong way, or--

Tim. “Oracle, can you patch me through to Robin?”

“Is it an emergency?”

“Yes, it’s--”

“Hang on. He’s trying the line right now.”

“Which one?”

“Both of yours--” She patches him through, and it sounds very hard like Robin is trying not to panic when he responds to his callname.  

“There’s a problem,” he says, voice tight.

“Superman woke up.”

“So you know he’s alive?”

“Tell Robin to get out. I’ll handle it.” Batman is right there. “I’m going to have the Flash pick him up.”

“Robin? B’s arranging an extraction--”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m staying.”

“It’s not safe.” That’s Batman, close enough that Tim can probably hear him through Nightwing’s mic.

“I can’t just leave.” The line drops, and Nightwing swears.

“Oracle, get him back on!”

“I can’t get him back on if he’s locked me out,” she says, and though it’s usually difficult to discern any kind of tone of voice from her, it’s clear that she’s frustrated. “The brat is sending static to block his line. Give me a few minutes.” They might not have a few minutes, given Superman’s history of destroying cities, but Bruce is already pulling Alfred up and getting the plane ready.

Dick takes a deep breath and hopes that Tim can convince Superman that his clone isn’t a threat.

* * *

 

 Superboy’s showing off when Tim notices what could be a plane heading towards them. He says, “Superboy, can you check that out? It looks like it’s coming in fast,” and Superboy looks at it, feigns a yawn, and says, “Yeah, sure. Whatever you want, Wonder Bread.”

“It’s ‘Boy Wonder,’” Tim corrects under his breath while he takes off. It’s only a minute and then there are two figures plummeting out of the sky, down towards the one green space in Metropolis. Not a plane. Shit. Shit. It takes a solid five seconds of trying to see who’s pushing who before realizing that the figure in the dark suit is, in fact, Superman, and that’s only when he uses the lenses on his mask to zoom in. “Oracle? Oracle, I need to get through to Batman or Nightwing or someone, please pick up--”

“Robin?”

It’s Nightwing, which is only a minor relief because, at least in this universe, Tim doesn’t think Nightwing and Superman ever met each other. (It happened in a dream once, but it’s not the time or place). “There’s a problem.”

The conversation feels robotic and he knows that he probably should be heading the exact opposite direction of where Superman and Superboy crash-landed onto prime Metropolis territory, especially when he hears that _Batman’s_ worried, but he doesn’t care. Weird thing that happens when you try making friends with someone so you can find out more about them and the freaky lab that created them: There’s a risk of actually becoming friends with them, and Tim “My Only Friend Is Bernard Dowd Who Won’t Even Talk to Me at School” Drake has been in desperate need of friendship, even if it’s just friendship he manufactured to get something he wanted. It’s been several months of using his allowance on pizza at midnight with Superboy and talking about, besides work, the things that they do. So he doesn’t really care right now if Superboy was made to conquer the world (which, to be fair, is a distinct possibility given Lex Luthor’s shady involvement with Cadmus that he _still_ hasn’t cracked beyond donations), and if the person who’s pummeling him is _Superman_ , he’s going to try to help his friend.

He swings down and starts a sprint while most citizens are running away, which he’s sure is exactly what he’d do if he were sane and didn’t know that he has a chunk of kryptonite the size of the last knuckle of his thumb inside a lead-lined box on his belt. It won’t mortally wound Superman, but it’d at least daze him a little while Tim could figure something out.

Something that resembles a plan, which is something he really doesn’t have. Coming up with a contingency plan beyond the kryptonite for Superboy hasn’t worked out too well since he gets new powers every week. There’s the one in place for Superman, but even that needs more than just him in his regular ( _regular_ , like everyone gets dressed up to fight crime) uniform--needs someone like Batman, who he’s sure will show up any time. He groans, but keeps running.

When he gets there, they’re--well. Robin assesses the situation and while Superman has him in a pretty tight chokehold, it’s probably not life-threatening. At least, for Superboy. “Hey! Let him go!” It’s not Robin who says it, but Tim Drake. Superman looks at him, confused, but his grip lessens enough that Superboy can pull out of it, breaks away gasping and rubbing his throat.

“Who are you?”

“I’m with Batman. And you need to believe me--he’s not a bad guy.” Tim steps forward hesitantly, thinking about whether or not he’d be able to access the kryptonite faster than Superman could knock him to the ground. Maybe not--but Superboy’s tactile telekinesis could, if Tim were able to yell to him.

“You’re with Batman.”

“Yeah, I’m--I’m older than I look.”

“He can tell when you’re lying,” Superboy says, unhelpfully. “I can, too. You’re like, my age. If I were actually my age.”

“You’re wearing my family’s crest,” Superman says, looking at Superboy, who’s still on guard. “It’s not yours.”

“It’s hard to explain--”

When he hears the sound of Batman’s plane, Tim thinks he’s going to faint with relief, but the adrenaline is still throbbing through his entire body, so he remains upright. Who knows if this Superman (who’s grown a _mullet_ while he was dead, so yikes there) is going to actually trust Batman? He still might have to fight, which is not appealing. At all.

“Robin, I told you to go home.”

Batman descends, and Tim figures Nightwing’s probably in the plane too. Great. “Well, I didn’t,” he answers, and it’s enough to get Superboy to snort at least. Tension diffusing.

“Who the hell is this kid?”

“I’m you, jerk.”

“That’s oversimplifying and untrue.” Batman steps onto solid ground and stands between Superman and Superboy. “He’s a clone.”

“A clone? He doesn’t look anything like me.”

“That’s for sure. I’m a lot better looking!”

“Superboy, shut _up_ ,” Tim says, looking at him. Maybe Superman sees something he doesn’t in Superboy’s face; for all the discrepancies that Tim’s noticed, from a passing look he’d probably call them identical. They’re about to be scolded regardless, which is embarrassing enough when it’s his actual dad and even worse when it’s Batman. Plus, Nightwing’s watching the whole thing. “You’re just going to make things worse if you don’t stop talking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’d be better to explain this in private.” Batman looks at Superboy and Robin, who straightens up under scrutiny and frowns.

“He’s been calling himself by my name and wearing my family’s coat of arms.” Superman looks at Superboy and frowns.

“He’s been doing a lot of good,” Tim says, trying to defend Superboy. “It’s not his fault. He doesn’t even have a name.”

“Well, it stops, now.” Superman looks at Batman. “I’m going to see Lois, and then you can try explaining what this is later.” There’s one last look cast at Superboy, sizing him up. “This is my city,” he says, before taking off into the stratosphere, somewhere that Superboy just can’t reach, and there’s a deflated sense of expectations in Tim’s chest. He kind of figured that Superman might be understanding. Clone or not, Superboy is probably the closest thing he has to a blood relative that’s alive now.

“But Lois Lane was dating Clark Kent,” Superboy says, face lost in confusion, lost in general.

“Thanks for getting here, Bat--”

“Robin, when I tell you to leave a situation, you follow orders. Is that not understood?”

Tim’s taken aback for a second. “He had Superboy in a headlock when I showed up. You’re the one who approved me coming out here in the first place.”

“Your safety is a priority and if you can’t listen when I tell you that something is too dangerous, you can’t be Robin.” He looks up towards the plane. “We’re leaving.”

“I.” He looks at Superboy, who still has a look on his face like he’s having trouble processing what just happened. “He.”

“I’ll be fine, Rob. It’s whatever. Just go.” Superboy gives him a glance before heading off in a different direction from wherever Superman went off. Probably going to Hawaii, Tim thinks, remembering the conversations that they’ve had about the places that he wants to visit and all the places that Superboy’s gone to just because he can. Watching him blur and then disappear, Tim waits a second before following Batman back into the plane.

“I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again,” he says, and Batman doesn’t say anything. Nightwing turns around to give him what might be a sympathetic look, but it’s gone too soon to be much good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I apologize for how long it took to get an update between this and the last chapter. Life likes to get in the way of almost everything.   
> 2\. I get the feeling that I've just dug myself into a hole, but I'm not sure how deep it's going to wind up being.  
> 3\. As always, comments are appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over on tumblr at sailorbirdie.tumblr.com.


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